LOL vs. Emoticons....

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which is worse?

― kelsey (kelstarry), Thursday, 22 April 2004 21:25 (twenty-two years ago)

A pox on both their houses.

― Michael White (Hereward), Thursday, 22 April 2004 21:27 (twenty-two years ago)

A smiley-free Ned would be a very sad sight indeed, but otherwise I guess both are kind of dud-ish.

― El Diablo Robotico (Nicole), Thursday, 22 April 2004 21:28 (twenty-two years ago)

okay. the thing is...i agree. i hardly ever laugh out loud at an email & i find the smiles annoying. especially the "fancier" ones that are actual attachments.....BUT what if someone you're slightly intrigued by uses one or the other?

― kelsey (kelstarry), Thursday, 22 April 2004 21:29 (twenty-two years ago)

It's N. isn't it? It's always N.

― penelope_11, Thursday, 22 April 2004 21:31 (twenty-two years ago)

O_o

― SLeeeter Kinney (Leee), Thursday, 22 April 2004 21:31 (twenty-two years ago)

― :|, Thursday, 22 April 2004 21:36 (twenty-two years ago)

I use the sad emoticon in a kind of emo way the other week. And I used the happy one to make it clear I wasn't being combative with someone. I don't know what's come over me. I always have a problem getting them the right way around, anyway. The winky one is stupid and never to be used. What's wrong with a big fat wide-eyed moronic smile? I have a certain amount of reverence for real winking, and the emoticon one is thus offensive to me.

It's always N.

― N. (nickdastoor), Thursday, 22 April 2004 21:41 (twenty-two years ago)

(;

― SLeeeter Kinney (Leee), Thursday, 22 April 2004 21:42 (twenty-two years ago)

I quite like that, as it reminds me of the Terrance & Phillip show.

― N. (nickdastoor), Thursday, 22 April 2004 21:43 (twenty-two years ago)

Clearly, emoticons are not to be italicized.

― N. (nickdastoor), Thursday, 22 April 2004 21:43 (twenty-two years ago)

Today, I apologized to this new girl I'm dating for maybe using the smiley too much in my e-mails to her. I don't want her to think that I'm someone that uses emoticons with wild abandon. But the smiley is nice sometimes.

― jaymc (jaymc), Thursday, 22 April 2004 21:46 (twenty-two years ago)

― El Diablo Robotico (Nicole), Thursday, 22 April 2004 21:55 (twenty-two years ago)

― :|, Thursday, 22 April 2004 22:00 (twenty-two years ago)

should the use of one or the other be a hint of dealbreakers to come? or is it a dealbreaker in itself? i know this sounds ridiculously picky...humor me.

― kelsey (kelstarry), Thursday, 22 April 2004 22:01 (twenty-two years ago)

Mmm.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 22 April 2004 22:05 (twenty-two years ago)

what does "Mmm" mean?

― kelsey (kelstarry), Thursday, 22 April 2004 22:06 (twenty-two years ago)

Nes.

― SLeeeter Kinney (Leee), Thursday, 22 April 2004 22:08 (twenty-two years ago)

The Big Two emoticons are useful in conversation. You can work around them, but that rarely makes things _more_ naturalistic.

lol I have issues with. I use 'haha' to the same effect, but it has a wider role as well. 'haha' at the start of a sentence means something similar to :) at the end, though there's a difference I can't quite articulate. Possibly surprise.

But lol raises my hackles because of it's association with the first wave of IRC-speak.

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Thursday, 22 April 2004 22:18 (twenty-two years ago)

IRC?

― kelsey (kelstarry), Thursday, 22 April 2004 22:19 (twenty-two years ago)

The English lnaguage rules. Emoticons are the punk of the written word. LOL and its associated TLAs are the stadium rock.

― Johnney B (Johnney B), Thursday, 22 April 2004 22:19 (twenty-two years ago)

Emoticons are integral to electronic communication. They add a new dimension to speech. Sarcasm, wit, etc. can now be expressed with great ease. It's also grammatically correct to add a smiley to the end of a sentence, to wit:

Stay away from my turnip farm. :)

'LOL' is fucking stupid. 'LOLOLOLOLOL' is even worse.

stay away from my turnip farm lololol

Not only is it facking stupid, it invites teasing and bullying, and rightly so.

In conclusion, I wholeheartedly support the use of 'LOL', because it labels lamers in twelve foot neon letters, just as effectively as alternating capitals and upside-down question marks, thereby segregating society into two mutually exclusive groups -- smart people and spacktards. The end.

― Autumn Almanac (Autumn Almanac), Thursday, 22 April 2004 22:26 (twenty-two years ago)

autumn almanac is otm.

Another bad one is oic=oh I see. My mom of all people told me this, because she hates it when her sister uses it. (there should be an AIM and your family thread.) So now when she or I go on a chat rant, the other one will say 'oic' (but like ironically) and we'll realize how silly the whole damn world is.

― teeny (teeny), Thursday, 22 April 2004 22:30 (twenty-two years ago)

I've never heard of that before.

IRC = AIM of olden days. Maybe 10 years ago? Ouch.

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Thursday, 22 April 2004 22:36 (twenty-two years ago)

I understand the Sinister kids still 'do it'. The first time I went on IRC, in 1996, some people were having a quiz. They all seemed to know each other and I left. LOL.

― N. (nickdastoor), Thursday, 22 April 2004 23:13 (twenty-two years ago)

The ones I hate are weird contractions of words used by online gamer-types. eg "dun" for don't and "wut" for what, and so forth. Anyone who uses them can safely be ignored.

― DougD, Thursday, 22 April 2004 23:54 (twenty-two years ago)

Are we all hypocritical like me? I'll bag out contractions until I'm blue in the face, but then I'll go and spoil it all by saying something stupid like 'wtf'.

― Autumn Almanac (Autumn Almanac), Friday, 23 April 2004 00:03 (twenty-two years ago)

There's some three letter abbreviation with a d in it (I think) and slashes /// between all the letters that people are using. What does that mean. No, it's not a/s/l.

― N. (nickdastoor), Friday, 23 April 2004 00:06 (twenty-two years ago)

do you mean w/r/t?

― the surface noise (electricsound), Friday, 23 April 2004 00:08 (twenty-two years ago)

Oh yeah - that's it. No d, sorry. What does it mean?

― N. (nickdastoor), Friday, 23 April 2004 00:11 (twenty-two years ago)

"with relation to"

― the surface noise (electricsound), Friday, 23 April 2004 00:12 (twenty-two years ago)

It's rubbish. People should stop using it almost as much as they should stop using 'FAP'.

― N. (nickdastoor), Friday, 23 April 2004 00:13 (twenty-two years ago)

otm

― Orbit (Orbit), Friday, 23 April 2004 00:30 (twenty-two years ago)

I say lol on AIM. It's just become natural to me.

All other abbreviations, however...

― Curt1s St3ph3ns, Friday, 23 April 2004 01:17 (twenty-two years ago)

Well, lol is kind of alright simply because of its age; it's been floating around since well before the web. I remember it from when I was really young, along with other, forgotten abbreviations like "veg" for "very evil grin", and "fod" which was "finger of death" - a moderator banning you from the bbs or mud.

― DougD, Friday, 23 April 2004 03:22 (twenty-two years ago)

I stopped using LOL after getting playfully teased about using it. Now I've found other useful methods of explaining that someone's AIM message or post has inspired great mirth in me, e.g. the old fallbacks "*snort*" and "*laughs*", which are both more low-key and accurate. IMHO. (Ha. There I go again with the acronyming.)

I could not communicate online without emoticons, though. Oh sure, I hate the little, cutesy animated emoticons as much as the rest of you do or would, but the regular standbys such as :) and :( still get a lot of use out of me. Though sometimes I try to use "*smiles*" and "*frowns*" instead. Ah yes. The asterisky thingamabobs. I'll defend those, most definitely.

― Many Coloured Halo (Dee the Lurker), Friday, 23 April 2004 03:42 (twenty-two years ago)

Did "w/r/t" exist before David Foster Wallace used it?

― jaymc (jaymc), Friday, 23 April 2004 06:42 (twenty-two years ago)

//oo\\

― holojames (holojames), Friday, 23 April 2004 09:12 (twenty-two years ago)

wrt = with respect to, it's used in maths and physics innit?

― Ricardo (RickyT), Friday, 23 April 2004 09:25 (twenty-two years ago)

What's wrong with 'toward', ' as for' or 're:' (depending on the context)?

― N. (nickdastoor), Friday, 23 April 2004 09:33 (twenty-two years ago)

Ooh I've always thought it was With Regards To...

― Sarah (starry), Friday, 23 April 2004 09:34 (twenty-two years ago)

Relation/respect/regard/reference who cares?

― N. (nickdastoor), Friday, 23 April 2004 09:38 (twenty-two years ago)

wrt = with respect to, it's used in maths and physics innit?

Yes. Maths actually has quite a few shorthandisms of this type.

"The derivative of the function F wrt x shows that wlog we can pick an element S st F is constant iff S is an element of the compact subset T".

wrt = with respect to
wlog = without loss of generality
st = such that
iff = if and only if

― OleM (OleM), Friday, 23 April 2004 09:50 (twenty-two years ago)

I used to use iff until I realised no one had the faintest idea what it meant.

― Ricardo (RickyT), Friday, 23 April 2004 09:54 (twenty-two years ago)

ROTFLOL!
:)
LMAO!
;)

and the forbidden :P

― Mr Noodles (Mr Noodles), Friday, 23 April 2004 12:35 (twenty-two years ago)

I know Boolean logic, but never use XOR. It's a bit rubbish.

― N. (nickdastoor), Friday, 23 April 2004 12:38 (twenty-two years ago)

4070 ROCKS!

― Mr Noodles (Mr Noodles), Friday, 23 April 2004 12:55 (twenty-two years ago)

nine months pass...

i guess this is the best place to put this... these are from an msnbc story about kids chatting online-- apparently these are abbreviations that people actually use. hard to believe though:

A/S/L
Age/Sex/Location

AWGTHTGTTA
Are We Going To Have To Go Through This Again

BOHICA
Bend Over Here It Comes Again

CRTLA
Can't Remember the Three-Letter Acronym

CTC
Choking The Chicken

ESO
Equipment Smarter than Operator

GLYASDI
God Loves You And So Do I

GYPO
Get Your Pants Off

NIFOC
Nude (naked) In Front Of The Computer

NYCFS
New York City Finger Salute

OLL
On-Line Love

QT
Cutie

RTBS
Reason To Be Single

RUMORF
Are You Male Or Female

SOHF
Sense Of Humor Failure

SSEWBA
Someday Soon, Everything Will Be Acronyms

TDTM
Talk Dirty To Me

― firstworldman (firstworldman), Wednesday, 9 February 2005 21:14 (twenty-one years ago)

KORITFW!

― The Ghost of Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Wednesday, 9 February 2005 21:43 (twenty-one years ago)

s: haw
:|
:\

D: lol
:P

― roxymuzak (roxymuzak), Wednesday, 9 February 2005 21:57 (twenty-one years ago)

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